Aurora is loaded with a surplus of restaurants that serve delicious Korean barbecue dishes and traditional hot pot style meals. However, Korean desserts are often overlooked. That’s where Snowl Café comes to the rescue. Serving unique snow bowls and taiyaki ice cream in Aurora since 2018, the shop is a must-go if you’re craving Korean and Asian sweets.
Try the famous Taiyaki ice cream ($5.95). This fish-shaped waffle cone is filled with red bean paste, custard, chocolate or sweet potato. Taiyaki is made with regular waffle batter, poured into a fish-shaped mold and cooked until golden brown. The waffle cone, which originated in Japan but is also popular in Korea, has a thin crunchy layer on the outside with a light and airy texture on the inside — truly resembling a fluffy waffle.
Snowl offers a make-your-own Taiyaki with three simple customizable steps starting with the filling, either red bean or Nutella. Then it’s on to the ice cream flavor with the options of either milk tea, matcha or taro. The most popular flavored ice cream is the matcha. It has a strong green tea essence followed by a light sweetness. The last step is the choice of two fun toppings like fruity pebbles and frosted animal crackers among other options.
For those shaved ice lovers, the popular Snow Bowls ($7.50-$13.50) are giant bowls filled to the rim with shaved snow covered in condensed milk and topped with a wide array of fresh fruit, sliced nuts and cookie crumbles depending on the type of bowl ordered. The snow bowls can easily feed a group of about three or four people with its mountain-like portion size.
This Eastern Asian dessert shop transports its customers into a trendy hangout spot with exposed brick and Instagram worthy neon signs. The ceiling is adorned with thick cloud lights and a giant Broadway marquee sign proclaiming its name.
Snowl prides itself on elevating traditional Korean food culture through countless unique flavors from black sesame and green tea to sweet potato cheesecake and mango. The vast menu offers various flavored slush boba beverages, fraffe drinks—mainly ice blended with milk, milk tea boba and smoothie boba.
Unique to Aurora, the taiyaki ice cream and icy snow bowls are also accompanied by two hot and spicy dishes that showcase Korean street food to the Western half of the world. The Tteokbokki ($16.95) and Tteok Kkochi ($3) have become increasingly popular and remain the only two savory items on the menu.
Tteokbokki is a Korean soup dish with hard-boiled eggs, mini frank sausages, melted cheese, sautéed vegetables, fish and rice cakes all simmered in a spicy dashi and gochujang ( a Korean chili paste stock). This peppery stew is the comfort food you didn’t know you needed. For the Tteok Kkochi, these are chewy rice cake skewers covered in the same spicy gochujang sauce perfect for a quick salty snack to juxtapose those ice-cold snow bowls. These savory snacks exemplify Korean street food and give the other Eastern Asian restaurants in the neighborhood a run for their money.
Whether you are looking for an authentic sweet treat or savory snack with Korean flare, Snowl Café in Aurora makes it easy to satisfy that craving.
Snowl Café is located next to Katsu Ramen on the corner of Havana Street and Jewell Avenue. Snowl is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
All photography by Giacomo DiFranco